For reasons which are not fully understood, presently available oat cereals tend to foam during cooking. This problem is most extreme in connection with the cooking of the thicker types of oat flakes, such as, for example, Old Fashioned Oat Cereals. This foaming occurs to such an extent that, if conventional one-serving size bowls are used, some of the contents of the container being heated will tend to spill over onto the range top or onto the oven once boiling temperatures are reached, and well within the time required to cook the cereal.
With the recent meteoric increase in the use and availability of microwave ovens, this method of consumer preparation of hot oat cereals has also become increasingly attractive. It is believed that parents are increasingly likely to encourage their pre-teen and adolescent children to prepare a personal serving bowl of hot oat cereal in the microwave. The tendency to foam out of the bowl in ordinary microwave preparation was so great that considerable care and precision had to be exercised in measuring, timing, etc. And, of course, many youthful consumers, and others, are not particularly noted for taking great pains in the precision of their routine activities. The inconvenience inherent in incurring the risk of foam-over greatly reduces the extent to which the consumers can capitalize on this wonderfully convenient potential single serving method for preparing ho cereals.
On the other hand, hot cereals, for example, hot whole grain oat cereals such as oatmeal, which naturally also contains oat bran, have been achieving higher and higher degrees of acceptance by consumers. This may be due, in part, to the widespread publication of the impact of oat bran in providing a healthful lowering of cholesterol components in the human system. In addition, the Oat is a highly nutritious grain, not only in terms of possessing outstanding water soluble fiber levels, but also in terms of the attractiveness of its protein, mineral and lipid content and other nutritive components. Oats is reported to have the highest protein content of all the cereal grains.
In view of the increased appreciation of the beneficial effects of oat products, it is highly desirable to improve the efficiency, convenience and results of the consumer preparation of such oat products, such as oatmeal and oat bran, without adversely affecting the natural wholesomeness of the products.
Also, the widespread utilization of these benefits would be enhanced by substantial improvements in the convenience and satisfaction of consumer preparation, and by improvements in the quality of the consumer-prepared product.
However, the increasingly stringent consumer standards for high quality products, in terms of both organoleptic and convenience attributes, and in terms of healthful nutritional impact, must be achieved in products of very economical manufacturing processes, in order for the cereal product to survive in the current, highly competitive marketplace. Moreover, such products, when packaged in conventional packaging materials, must be shelf stable, to the extent of remaining in a desirably consumable form, and in a form which is readily prepared by the consumer, during the entire time after manufacture and packaging, and up to the consumption by the consumer.
In addition to convenience of consumer preparation, other attributes such as texture, aroma and flavor are also important in the success of competitive hot cereal products. Moreover, there are a variety of types of oat cereals, in which the types are characterized by flake thicknesses, which must be made available in order to meet consumer preferences and demands, such as for example Steam Table (0.025-0.028"), Old Fashioned (0.020-0.024"), Quick (0.015-0.019"), and Instant (0.011-0.014") types. Thickness also affects the convenience of consumer preparation. We have discovered that the thicker the flakes, the more acute the microwave boilover problem. Improvements in oat processing which make the product better for microwave preparation should be amenable to the manufacture of all types of oat flake products.
Hence, it would be desirable to provide improvements in oat processing which result in an oat cereal product which, when prepared by the consumer, is not particularly sensitive to reproduction of exact microwave conditions such as timing and the quantity of water, for successful consumer preparation in the microwave.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a hot oat cereal which is particularly well suited to preparation in a microwave oven.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a high speed, competitive process for the manufacture of microwave flaked or rolled hot oat cereals.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an economical commercial process for manufacture of hot oat cereals of all types and kinds, including oatmeals, oat brans, etc. which can be reliably prepared in a microwave oven without boilover during the normal cooking cycle required to cook the product, and develop flavor, etc.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a method for such manufacture which results in a shelf stable product having improved flavor and texture qualities when consumer-prepared.